Insights into breast cancer phenotying through molecular omics approaches and therapy response

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the world. Despite advances in early detection and understanding of the molecular bases of breast cancer biology, approximately 30% of all patients with early-stage breast cancer have metastatic disease. Breast cancers are comprised of molecularly distinct subtypes that respond differently to pathway-targeted therapies and neoadjuvant systemic therapy. However, no tumor response is observed in some cases and development of resistance is most commonly seen in patients with heterogeneous breast cancer subtype. To offer better treatment with increased efficacy and low toxicity of selecting therapies, new technologies that incorporate clinical and molecular characteristics of intratumoral heterogeneity have been investigated. This short review provides some examples of integrative omics approaches (genome, epigenome, transcriptome, immune profiling) and mathematical/computational analyses that provide mechanistic and clinically relevant insights into underlying differences in breast cancer subtypes and patients’responses to specific therapies.